Carl Laurie, Principal, Christ Church School, Mumbai talks about changes in school system from pre-independence to post independence era. In conversation with Seema Gupta, Elets News Network

Please share your views on changing face of education system
The education sector in India is going through exciting times over past five years. As estimated, 47 million children need to get basic education by 2020. Education over the last five years can be termed as a transition phase as India has seen a mushrooming of new educational institutions, backed by resources from industrial houses, jostling for their share and recognition. We have the pre-independence schools that had a head start, and rightly can claim to be pioneers in quality value based education. Fortunately, there is space for the old and the new to co-exist and network together contributing to nation building through education.

How can we prepare students for future?
We have no choice but to move from the old to the new, the demarcating year 1989, that is, pre and post the impacting ‘world wide web’ but there is optimism as always in human capacity to adapt and change, the young are more comfortable with this phenomena, but it was the pre-1989 generation that created the computer, so there is no reason why the challenge of digital age in education should cause a murmur in hearts of senior and older teachers. Earlier education given by schools lasted a life time, but today what is valid this year, may be out dated next year. So, the greatest challenge is to prepare our students for tomorrow that we haven’t seen, a tomorrow that will be so different from today, and nothing like yesterday.

Please highlight some initiatives that CCS took up under your leadership.
Value is the most important principle that governs every decision and is something that never grows old, outdated or stale. If values can be inculcated in our young, they will emerge like a tree that withstands all pressures. The system of having Mentors for smaller groups of 8-10 students helps the children to confide and stay motivated academically. Being an old school, nearly 200 years, we have a rich blend of experienced and not so experienced staff. Technology bridges this gap but bring tech savy students and experienced teachers together so that the beneficiaries are the students at the end.

“Value is the most important principle that governs every decision and is something that never grows old, outdated or stale”

Please throw light on special training programmes for teachers’ development?
Real life is the ultimate open book exam for students, hence it’s imperative that we, as educators prepare ourselves to prepare our students. We at CCS invest a substantial part in teacher development, and staff development programmes Right from training in fire-fighting equipment, disaster management to training in soft skills, computer based teaching, motivation and counseling skills to dealing with children with problem and an inclusive education to leadership workshops. It is a continuous and happening process ingrained in the psyche of all in the school.

What has been your priority as an administrator?
As an administrator, the biggest challenge is not educating the child, but the parent.We have to make parents understand that their child is the only star for them, but for a teacher, all the children in our care, are stars. We love them, we believe in them and we want the best for each of them that is why we are teachers.

An alumni of Doon School and St Stephens’ College, Sumer Singh, Principal, Daly College, Indore has been Head of the Lawrence School, Sanawar for seven years and Director of the Asian School. He also taught at the Doon School and at Gordonstoun, Scotland, Boxhill, St Anne’s, England and UWC, Wales. He was Advisor (Education) Government of Punjab. Author of three books-’Doon The Story of a School’ and ‘Unity in Diversity’ and ‘The Daly College’ share his experience on changing school education system in India.

How has education sector evolved over past last five years?
The school education is not healthy. With all good intentions to provide free and compulsory education, the government has enacted a law which will definitely lower the educational standards and competency in this country.

Would you like to share any major obstacle faced by Daly College?
More and more Indians desire to provide good education to their children. The demand for admission in good schools is growing much faster than the number of seats available. Possibly the biggest challenge being faced by us at Daly College is the pressure for admissions that we are unfortunately unable to meet.

Would you like to comment on Supreme Court guidelines on ragging?
The Supreme Court had ruled that schools must take firm action against cases of ragging. But, at the same time, the Parliament has ruled that a school cannot take any mental or physical action against any student nor can they suspend or expel them. It is indeed tough for school authorities at times to deal with such cases on campus and punish the students in case they violate the guidelines.

What are the new initiatives undertaken in your school?
Our school believes in student initiatives and student leadership. There are any number of innovations taking place on a regular basis. These include building of hostels in the school for hearing impaired and mentally retarded in the Missionaries of Charity Home; toilets for girls in government schools; a green club with demonstration centre; garbage management; resource centre for students of Indore; and a course for foreign students on Indian Culture..

What are the special training programmes undertaken by your school for teacher development?
Our teachers are supported to take part in workshops and regular educational upgrades. Nearly 30 teachers travel abroad every year.

Please share your experience as an administrator.
As an administrator, I realise that the major challenge is to keep up with all the suggestions and resultant changes that occur owing to student and staff initiatives.

Would you like to comment on the impact of RTE on school education?
Parliament has now stopped us from conducting entrance tests and therefore the very basis of our existence has been challenged. Admissions these days are merely based on lottery. Merit is no longer a key factor in granting admission to a student. This practice will obviously lead to degradadtion of quality of education in the long run.

The Chintels School is a learning centre and provides a family environment based on mutual understanding, respect and co-operation, says Kalpana Nath, Principal, Chintels, in conversation with Elets News Network.

How has education changed in India and what are the various factors that have lead to the change?
There has been a radical change in the Indian education system. Earlier there were limited choices for the students. Now, there is a plethora of subjects which the students can opt for. These subjects also help them in their future careers. This change had to take place due to the competitive scenario in the world.

What are the key issues faced by new schools?
The new schools face tough competetion from the established schools. To be successful, the emerging schools need to come up with innovative ideas and keep persevering to reach the zenith of success.

What are the new initiatives undertaken by Chintels?

We have introduced modules of different subjects to make the lessons, more interesting to enable students to grasp the contents more easily.

What has been the biggest hurdle of working in the education sector?
The biggest challenge is to ensure all round personality development in students to make them good human beings. The students should be able to face all the challenges in their life.

How do you ensure quality teachers’ training at your institution?
The fundamental job of teaching is no longer to distribute facts but to help children learn how to use them by developing their abilities to think critically, solve problems and create knowledge that benefits both the student and society. Technology is changing rapidly and the education system is undergoing a rapid change. The teachers have to keep abreast with the current education system. In school, seminars and workshops are conducted to enhance the teaching techniques and provide them a lot of training to be able to teach the students in new and innovative ways.

An alumnus of IIM, Bangalore and St Stephen’s, a visionary who has led CL’s dramatic growth from a one-man startup to one of Asia’s leading education corporate. He has trained thousands of students, teachers and corporate executives. Satya Narayana R, Founder and Chairman, Career Launcher and Indus World School shares his insight on various aspects of education in India.

Please share the genesis of Indus World School.
The journey of Indus World began in 2005. The rules and law in India makes it an arduous task to open a new school but the journey of our School has been quantitatively challenging and qualitatively rewarding.

What is the USP of your group?
The group realises that teaching a nursery student today has its impact on the individual and society for the next 50 years. The responsibility of the schools is to be able to dig into their imagination and devise a system which is wired into today’s world rather than being a photocopy of the past. The Indus World School’s prime focus is on delivering quality education through dynamic classroom practices and new teacher capacity building practices to be able to provide an education to the students which is wired into the future.

How do you ensure quality is maintained across all Indus World schools?
The group continuously invents and reinvents its policies and teaching methodology by understanding the need of the area in which the school is operational. Maintaining the quality of the schools is an operationally intensive, day-night continuous improvement job. Education imparted at various locations across India has to be improvised according to the area and the same framework does not apply to all the institutions.

Do you have any plans to expand the group in coming years?
The group has a vision to establish schools across India. However, keeping in mind the availability of limited financial resources, we devised three models of partnerships to expand the group. The three models include: Infra partner, the school land and building is owned by the individual and is leased to the Indus world Group and the running of the school is undertaken by the group without any interference of the infra partner. The second model is where the group owns the land, the building and is involved in the running of the school. There are three schools which are wholly owned by the group. The third model is the Education Partner where the owner of the school has to have a strong educational background and a willingness to improvise and improve upon the structure provided by Indus group. The content and manuals and training is provided by the Indus group for an education partner. In addition to the above models, we have an embedded system in all the schools to maintain high quality standards in the schools spread across India.

What are the challenges of opening schools in India?
The major challenge is to gather finance and get approvals to set up and run the schools. Relentless effort goes behind getting regulations approved in order to start a new institution. The people with the right attitude also suffer cause of the humongous effort required to get the requisitive approvals and that system has to eventually change.